Month: June 2022

Last Week Delight 6/29/2022

This post is a little later than normal. I usually try and write in the mornings because my brain is toast by the time I get home from work in the evening, and I almost never feel like writing then. Mornings this week have been busy, so I haven’t had a chance until now. But just cause I’m late talking about them doesn’t mean there weren’t delights to be had.

  • ALAL Presentation. Back in 2020 I had submitted a panel to the American Library Association on copyright myths and legends. Well we all know what happened in 2020, so that panel didn’t happen. Sometime this winter I got asked if I was interested in doing the panel for the conference this summer. That was back when everyone was predicting so many people would have had omicron over the winter that we’d get a nice lull in COVID until the fall like last summer. Ha, ha! Again we all know how that turned out. It’s no secret that I’m still super COVID cautious, so being on this panel turned into my nightmare a little bit. The only saving grace was that vaccines and masks were required for the conference. Most but not all people were wearing them properly in my session, which I am very thankful for given that room was jam packed full. Every seat was taken and people were standing in the aisles. I only went to the conference for my panel because I couldn’t make myself be around that many people inside for any longer than I had to be. It was really nice to be back at an in person conference for even that little bit. I wanted to stay and do more, but I didn’t. My panel went really well and a bunch of people stayed after to ask questions. They had to kick us out of the room for the next session in that space. So that was gratifying. The experience did confirm for me that I’m very much not ready to go back to in person concerts which would be even more crowded than that room and with no one else in masks. I’m still not out of the woods where I might test positive for COVID after this, so I might retract my delight if that happens.
  • Getting in a walk in between the rain. Last Thursday morning it was supposed to rain, so I wasn’t sure if I would get a morning walk in. When I woke up it was still raining, but I looked at the radar and it seemed like it was moving out, so I got up and figured by the time I fed the cat and got ready it would have cleared out. That’s mostly what happened. There were still a few sprinkles around. Though sometimes I couldn’t tell if it was actually raining or if it was water dripping off the trees. At any rate, whatever it was doing it was totally reasonable for me to walk in. I thought the rain had moved out for good, but when I opened the door to leave for work a little bit later it was pouring and kept raining for much of the day. Apparently I squeezed my walk into the tiny space in the morning when it wasn’t raining. I hate missing out on my walk, so I’m very happy I was able to sneak it in.

The rest of my delights are all music related this week.

  • WXPN’s Throwback Thursdays. Over the summer for the past many years now, WXPN has been doing Throwback Thursdays. When they originally started it was throwing back to the same digit year in earlier decades each week. Since they’ve done that, now they pick themes and play older songs that fit with the theme. Last week it was songs that reached number 2 on the Billboard charts, but never made it to number 1. So it was a really good week for hearing great songs that were once very popular, but that you may not have heard in a really long time. Sometimes with the themes the songs get a little obscure.
  • As I believe I have mentioned in a previous post, I have gotten into vinyl in the last year. I like to keep my eye out for cheap used vinyl, and this week I snagged used copies of Bridge Over Troubled Water and the Concert in Central Park by Simon and Garfunkel for $5.99 and $7.99 respectively. An excellent find!
  • My New Music Friday post for last week was about the new album by MUNA. The song “Anything But Me” has been out as a single since March, so Friday was not the first time I’d even heard it by far. I guess I never really listened to the lyrics before because listening to the whole album on Friday was the first time I at least paid attention to the opening lyrics of the song. They gave me a big, old smile.

You’re gonna say that I’m on a high horse

I think that my horse is regular-sized

Did you ever think maybe

You’re on a pony

Going in circles on a carousel ride?

  • We’ve been watching the new season of The Umbrella Academy. The first episode features this delightful dance off set to “Footloose”, which if I am not mistaken includes some of the choreography from the original movie and also perhaps from other movies like Dirty Dancing.

Bonnie Raitt with Lucinda Williams at Pier Six Pavilion

Saturday night we saw Bonnie Raitt with Lucinda Williams at Pier Six Pavilion. The show still indicated that we needed to have vaccine verification. They also said that when we were there a few weeks ago to see the War on Drugs, but no one asked to see our card so I kind of figured that it was just outdated information from before everywhere dropped all their restrictions. Luckily we brought them just in case because they did in fact check this time, though it was completely pointless because they didn’t check IDs along with them, so you literally could have shown them anybody’s vaccine card. As COVID cautious as I am, even I think having a vaccine requirement at an outdoor venue is silly at this point.

We grabbed the same exact spot at the front of the lawn that we had for The War on Drugs concert, which is a great spot. Great sight lines to the stage, no one in front of you, and cause of the positioning of a pillar no one wants to sit right next to you either because then they wouldn’t be able to see. Some guy did sit down next to me on the opposite on the small retaining wall that holds the lawn in and talked to me the whole time. He wasn’t a bad guy to talk to, but also I really didn’t need him chatting me up the entire concert.

Lucinda Williams was opening. I was a little bummed because half of this tour Bonnie Raitt had Mavis Staples opening for her and the other half was Lucinda Williams. I wish we had gotten Mavis, but oh well. I did not realize that Lucinda Williams had a stroke back in November of 2020. She can sing fine, but she still has a lot of problems with movement. She had to have someone walk her on and off the stage and needless to say she can’t play guitar anymore. I appreciate that she’s still out there trying to do her thing as best she can. Her band was great definitely filled in for her that respect. I don’t really know Lucinda Williams music very well. I mostly just know the song “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”. I just don’t think I like her voice that much even though her music is generally in my wheelhouse, and obviously she’s not much of a stage presence these days. So not a terrible set, but definitely not my favorite opening act ever.

Bonnie Raitt was great. She started off with a couple of songs off of her new album, which I happen to like. She’s still out there making good music. I was surprised she only played two songs from it, but I’m sure it pleased the crowd who were probably all there for the old stuff given that we were pretty much the youngest people I saw there save for one or two other groups of people. She played a good mix of songs from across her career. She of course played “Angel from Montgomery” and dedicated it to John Prine. She said she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to sing it on this tour, but instead it was cathartic. Speaking of people no longer in their performance prime, she definitely had to adjust “I Can’t Make You Love Me”. She can’t hit those high notes anymore, so she started much lower and at some points when the original song goes up she went down instead. It’s inevitable with older performers. Just a reminder that we’re all getting old and no longer in our hey days, but it’s not to say that the performance was bad at all. It was a really good set though that flew right by. I was shocked when she was done and I realized that she had in fact been playing for 90 minutes. It went by in the blink of an eye. I definitely wish she could have played longer, but noise ordinances yada, yada. I was happy to see her again, and we had another perfect night for an outdoor concert. I hope that trend continues.

New Music Friday: What I Want and Handle Me by MUNA

When I was looking up what new albums came out today I was actually surprised to see this self-titled MUNA album on the list because I quite honestly thought it already came out. “Silk Chiffon”, the lead single has been out in the world since last September and I suppose I might have been thinking the album came out back in March when the single “Anything But Me” came out. Anyway, this album is in fact out today on Saddest Factory Records, Phoebe Bridgers label. I really like the whole album. It ranges from dance club tracks like “What I Want” to the much more subdued tracks like “Handle Me”. I’m sharing both of those songs here today to give you a sense of the scope of the music on the album.

Last Week Delight

  • Perfect birthday weekend. This past Saturday was my birthday and I had a lot of plans for the weekend. I went to see Jason Isbell, Sheryl Crow, and Waxahatchee at Wolf Trap on Friday. I went to the Orioles game with a bunch of friends on Saturday. Then on Sunday I went to Merriweather Post Pavilion to see Tears for Fears and Garbage in concert. It was a weekend full of normal seeming things. Like this would have been the exact weekend I would have planned even without a pandemic. Aside from throwing on a mask to go to the bathroom at the venues, it felt completely normal to me. I know everyone else is living like the pandemic is over, but I’m not because it isn’t. It felt good to have a weekend that didn’t feel like it was planned around the pandemic for a change. Also, I could not have asked for more perfect weather. I was expecting it to be in the 90s with 100% humidity like it usually is by this time of year in Baltimore, but it was instead in the high 70s/low 80s with low humidity. A delightful weekend all around.
  • Birthday jumbotron. As I just mentioned I went to the Os game on Saturday for my birthday. You can submit someone’s name to be on the jumbotron for their birthday during the game. I would never submit it for myself, but one of my friends surprised me and submitted my name. And I luckily didn’t miss it because I literally had just returned from the bathroom right when they put it up.
  • Bramble London Fog cake. I love a local Baltimore bakery called Bramble Bakery. They used to sell at the farmer’s market we go to every Saturday, but then they opened a store front last year and quit selling at the market. Their store front is a 20-25 minute drive from my house, so I have never been because there are places in my neighborhood I can walk to, and I’m lazy. They posted on their social media last Tuesday that they were selling some mini London Fog cakes at the Hamilton/Lauraville farmer’s market, which is just down the road from their storefront. It was chocolate cake with salted caramel between the layers and an earl grey tea buttercream. I adore earl grey and this cake sounded amazing. Since I was off work I drove over and got one. It was as amazing as I imagined and totally worth the drive. I still haven’t been to their storefront though.
  • Speaking of cake, my husband with a little prodding from one of my friends got me a red velvet cake from Enchanted Cakes and Cupcakes. It’s actually on the same road as Bramble, but farther north and even longer to get to from my house. I had a slice of this cake there the Christmas before last because I went there to buy some hot chocolate bombs for my niece and nephew because they have a wide variety of flavors. I bought a slice of cake while I was there and have been thinking about it since. Despite me telling my husband that I always want cake on my birthday but don’t want to be the one to bake it or secure it, he never remembers. I was going to buy my own cake, but couldn’t pull the trigger on the cost and mentioned it to a friend, who told my husband to get it for me. Also, the cake says it serves 6-8 people on their websites, so I was expecting it to be smaller than it is. We’ve been eating it for Saturday and I took it to book club last night. At least 12 slices have been eaten and there’s over a quarter of the cake left still. I don’t know what size slices they expect people to eat. I guess we got our money’s worth.
  • Guy walking with his cat. I was out for a walk the other day and I saw a guy talking a walk and his cat was just trotting along beside him no leash or anything. I have no idea how he got the cat to do that. My cat would never.

And now for your musical delights for the week. Buckle in. There are quite a few.

  • When one of my friends got married she complained that her Tennessee relatives got the DJ to play the song “Rocky Top” because she hates it and didn’t think to put it on their do not play list. I happen to love that song. When she told me she couldn’t come to my birthday baseball game because she was going to Tennessee for her cousin’s wedding, I told her I would only accept it if she sent me a video of her dancing to “Rocky Top”, which was inevitably going to be played. Because she’s an awesome friend she did indeed take a video of herself dancing to the song and apparently had to run up a hill to get to the dance floor when she heard it starting. I would share it, but she would probably murder me so you’ll just have to imagine. What a good birthday present.
  • The thirteen year old that is going to be chasing the high she experienced at the Tears for Fears concert for the rest of her life. Read my post on the Tears for Fears concert for the full story.
  • I have written on this blog before about Nandi Bushell and Dave Grohl. It made me really happy that she is going to play at part of the tribute concert the Foo Fighters are doing for Taylor Hawkins.
  • I went to the dentists on Friday morning and the dental hygienist and I were chatting about my plans to go to a concert at Wolf Trap that night. She said she only ever went down there to see The Indigo Girls because that’s as close as they usually get. And I was like oh you know they’re opening for Brandi Carlile at Merriweather Post Pavilion in August, right? She did not and got all excited. She was like how did I not know this? I have to go buy tickets. I’m always happy to share my concert knowledge. Hopefully she got her tickets and will enjoy the show. I myself am looking forward to it.
  • Chvrches livestream from Bonnaroo. I had tickets to see Chvrches at both the Anthem and the 9:30 Club in the past 6 months both of which I just wound up eating because I’m still not ready to go back to indoor concerts and since they were artists pre-sale tickets I couldn’t resell them. I was at least happy that I could watch their set from Bonnaroo on Hulu on Saturday night (or most of it anyway since Hulu’s schedule was all screwed up with the start time listed earlier than the set actually started and then they still ended it at their listed time, so we missed the last few songs). I have zero interest in ever going to something like Bonnaroo or Coachella so I’m happy that a lot of these things are live streamed now and I can just enjoy them from the comfort of my own home instead of sweating to death in a field with a bunch of drunk and high people that I then have to camp next to as well. No thanks.
  • When I was a little kid my parents had some compilation cassette of the sort that they used to sell at gas stations and places like Big Lots. We had several of them in my house. There was one in particular that my sister and I used to listen to a lot. One of the songs on it was “Hitchin’ a Ride” by Vanity Fare. We had these tv trays that had as base that popped off from the top and you could fold the base open and form a sort of metal rectangle with it, which we would stand inside and pretend it was our car while we “drove” it around the basement listening to this song. I heard it on the radio this past week, and it made me think of that childhood memory.

Tears for Fears with Garbage at Merriweather Post Pavilion

Last night I went to see Garbage and Tears for Fears at Merriweather Post Pavilion. It was a real 90s throwback in a lot of ways except of course the fact that had it been the actual 90s I highly doubt these two bands would have been on the same bill together. Now they both tap into old people nostalgia all lumped together. I say it’s a 90s throwback concert because it was like the olden days when I first started going to concerts where you would have a single opening act that played for an hour and then the headliner would play for about 2 hours. Now bills are jammed full of multiple acts and even if there are only 2, they start later and it’s rare for the headliner to play for longer than 90 minutes.

It was Father’s Day and I think there were a good number of people in the crowd who were there as a father’s day present as there seemed to be lots of families with kids of all ages from babies to adults. Most of the audience as is to be expected were people approximately my age or older unless they were clearly there with people of that age group. There was one group of three twentysomethings that showed up for Tears for Fears and sat near us and I was like how did you get here?

There was a family inside the pit right up against the rail with two little girls one 13 and one 8. You may wonder how I know this, but it’s because the 13 year old was crazy excited and singing along to every song. The camera people kept panning to her during both sets, and at one point Curt from Tears for Fears talked to her and said I have to know how old you are and said that she’s been down here singing the words to every song, even the ones off the new album and said it was making his night. Then he asked how old her little sister was and apparently their father must have also said his age because he was like I don’t care that you’re 54 sir. But obviously you are raising your children right. Right before the end of the concert he asked her name and again told her that she made his night. What an exciting concert experience for that kid. I love that she’s going to have that story to tell for the rest of her life.

I was less enthused about the tween aged child in front of me who stood and clapped off beat over her head for almost the entire Tears for Fears set. At one point her parents pulled her down and were talking to her and then when she got back up she was just doing more rhythmic arm movements, so I thought maybe they had asked her to stop clapping. I was fine with the arm movements. It was really the off-beat clapping that was annoying me especially during slow songs that did not need anyone clapping along to them. Alas, that did not last long and she went back to the clapping. As a fellow rhythmically challenged human I’m not trying to denigrate that as much as say if you can’t clap on the beat then don’t spend two hours at a concert doing it non-stop. Someone needs to teach that kid how to channel her enthusiasm for the music into some dancing in place. Other than that it was a great night though.

Garbage was the opening band. Shirley Manson was so excited. She was like this is the best night. Things don’t get any better than this if you’re me. The weather is perfect and not the 100 degree heat we’ve been playing in. She said she couldn’t believe how many people came out to see them open. I would say the majority of the crowd was there for their set. I only saw a few people wander through our space in the lawn that were clearly looking for a place to sit right before Tears for Fears played. She said they haven’t played a crowd that big (~19,000 people) in this area since the HFStival back in 1995. HFStival being a big music festival in these parts back in the day that was attached to the radio station WHFS that has been defunct for almost 2 decades now. I’ve seen Garbage play a couple of times around these parts and they were playing in clubs that hold about 1,200 people so this was obviously a huge jump in crowd size as she said.

They were great. Shirley Manson is still the coolest in my opinion. She’s like the person I always secretly wanted and still secretly want to be even though I’m like 100% opposite of her. They of course played all their hit songs along with some other stuff. I had completely forgotten that they had a Bond song until she said they never play it, but that they were going to do it and we should enjoy it because they’re not going to do it again for a long time. They are still such a fun band to see live.

This was my first time seeing Tears for Fears live. I was too young to have seen them back in their hay day. They broke up just about the time that I was going to my first concerts. They have been back together off and on since 2004 and I guess have done some touring in that time, but never around these parts. Last night they said that the last time they played a concert in Maryland was 1990. So it’s not really like I’ve had much opportunity to see them. It would be easy to write them off as a legacy act, but they’re actually still writing new music. This tour is supporting their new album The Tipping Point, which came out earlier this year. It’s actually really good. They played a bunch of stuff off of it along with all of the hits that people came to hear, so I think everyone left happy. I was happy to get both because I do really like the new music as well as their old stuff. Though honestly I could have left happy after the third song when they played “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. It’s by far my favorite Tears for Fears songs and quite honestly one of my favorite songs ever. I fell in love with it as a little kid when it came out and have never stopped loving it. I’m very happy I finally got to hear it live. All in all a great show.

Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow at Wolf Trap

On Friday night we went to Wolf Trap to see my first concert there of the season and thankfully not the last. It was super hot during the day, but once the sun went down it was a very pleasant evening to sit outside and enjoy some live music. I always enjoy sitting on the lawn and enjoying a picnic there. Though it was a sold out show and we wound up setting our chairs up on the concrete just behind the lawn because the lawn was jam packed full. A family even set up behind where we were. I do have to question why the mom in that family thought tater tots are a good picnic food. Seems to me they would just be cold and soggy. She was listing off all the things she brought to the kids, and I was like tater tots?

Waxahatchee was opening. Her set was really short since Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow were co-headlining. She only had 30 minutes to play. It was an enjoyable little set though. I don’t have much to say about it.

This was a quick tour these three acts did together. I think it was something like only 6 dates. As is often the custom when artists co-headline they seemed to be trading off who went first and who went second. We had Sheryl Crow up first with Jason Isbell doing the final set. I have never been a huge Sheryl Crow fan. There are a handful of songs that I do actually really like, but most of them are just there apparently invading my brain against my will. I have never owned a Sheryl Crow album nor do I ever really seek out her music. Though I do have one of her songs, “I Shall Believe”, on my Amazing Songs Spotify Playlist. Sadly she did not play that song, though I didn’t really expect her to. My point with all this is to say that despite never really seeking her out on my own I knew pretty much every word to every song during that entire hour and fifteen minute set. I vaguely recognized a song from the Cars soundtrack that she apparently sings. I did not at all know some new song she made for the Showtime documentary about her that recently aired. But other than that I pretty much knew everything much to my surprise. I guess she had way more hit songs that were impossible to escape than I realized. She is a good performer, and I did enjoy her set. I’m still not going to go seek out her music though.

I’m always happy to be at a Jason Isbell concert. I love his music so much. It wasn’t one of the better sets of his that I’ve seen though. It felt very short. With them co-headlining and Wolf Trap having a hard out, they only had an hour and fifteen minutes each as I mentioned, which seemed very short and then he didn’t even really use it to its fullest. Sheryl just played straight through her full time. He did take the time at the end to do the whole dumb encore thing which ate up time and then they didn’t play all the way to 11. I feel like had they skipped the encore and played their full time they could have fit 2 more songs in there.

I was pleased that his wife, Amanda Shires, was there playing in the band. Literally the first thing I do every time I see him live is look to see if she’s there. She plays fiddle on all his albums, but as she has her own musical career she only sometimes tours with him. So they have all the songs re-orchestrated to play without the fiddle, but I much prefer it when she’s there. Apparently it was a special treat that she was there that night as she wasn’t supposed to be. He said she showed up and surprised him the night before in a rented Chrysler that he thought was the Uber Eats driver when she was first pulling up. I was also happy that he played “Goddamn Lonely Love”. It’s a song from back in his Drive-By-Truckers days, and although he usually throws one or two Truckers songs into his sets, he never plays this one live. During one of their Iso-lounging concerts that they did online at the beginning of the pandemic, Amanda told him that it was her favorite song that he’s ever written and he commented that he never plays it because it’s too depressing. I didn’t go too far back, but I did look up the most recent week of his setlists to see if it was something they had in regular rotation right now and doesn’t seem like it, so whether or not it’s true I’m going to believe that he added it to the set for her since she showed up to surprise him.

Overall a very enjoyable night of live music. I’m happy to be able to get to go to some concerts again that it’s still outdoor concert season. I don’t know when I’ll ever feel ready to go back to crowded indoor concerts. It’s super depressing to think about since obviously you know how much I love live music, and I’ve already sat out so much shows in the past year. I’m just going to try and enjoy the ones I can enjoy now in a much less risky environment.

New Music Friday: Mulholland Dr. by Bartees Strange

Until this morning I did not think I liked Bartees Strange. I did not care at all for the single that I heard off his previous album, so I never listened to anymore of his music. The first single, “Heavy Heart”, off his new album, Farm to Table, that came out today was something I liked better but still wasn’t anything that made me think wow I was completely wrong about how I feel about this artist’s music and I should really check out his other stuff. Well, now I am here to tell you that I was wrong about Bartees Strange because I really adore this new album. I still haven’t had a chance now to go actually listen to his full album to see if I like it as well, but I will. So thank you to NPR Music for playing a clip from “Mulholland Dr.” on your New Music Friday podcast this morning and alerting me to the fact that I might be missing out on something.

Bartees Strange is an interesting guy. He grew up in Oklahoma. He played football, but his mom was an opera singer so he also went to opera camp. He worked for the Obama administration as a spokesman for the FCC. He eventually quit that job and moved to New York to have a job that would give him more time to play music on the side and then eventually gave in and made music a full time gig. It was obviously a good move for him and for music lovers. I obviously can’t compare this to the first album that I haven’t fully listened to yet, but he for sure does not have a sophomore slump on his hands with this new album.

“Mulholland Dr.” is not my favorite song from the new album, but since it is the song that finally made me sit up and take notice, it is the one I’m sharing here. The sort of twinkly keyboardy sounds near the beginning of the song totally remind me of “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” by The War on Drugs. For all I know they’re both using the same loop. I don’t know because I don’t actually know anything about music, I just really like it. Sounds very similar if not the same to me. It’s what first drew me into the song because I’ve already shared how much I adore “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”. I’m very glad I finally got out of my own way and gave Bartees Strange a chance.

TV Diary

Still catching up on some TV shows I watched awhile ago.

With Love

With Love is a show on Amazon Prime that revolves around an extended Latinx family and various love stories within it. Each episode takes place on a different holiday so you’re moving quite a bit through time from episode to episode. It made it a little hard to invest in some the characters and relationships, but I thought it was cute. It’s apparently been renewed for a second season. I’m not sure where they will take it from here as it felt pretty self contained, but I guess I’ll find out eventually.

Julia

For the most part I enjoyed Julia on HBOMax. Sarah Lancaster did a great job of playing Julia. I also really enjoyed BeBe Neuwirth as her best friend. It was interesting to see how the show was created, though I have no idea how much of this is fact versus fiction. I did feel at times like Julia was too whiny, and I really could not with her husband. I feel like I always heard that they had this great relationship and that he was so supportive of her. And eventually by the end of this season he had come around and seemed to be more on her side, but good lord what a man baby whose little feelings are hurt because he got forced into retirement and now his wife is having success. Hopefully there will be less of that in the next season.

Heartstoppers

This was a cute adaptation of a series of graphic novels about two teenage boys exploring their sexuality and falling in love. I never read the books, but from what I gather from people online it was an extremely faithful adaptation with literal shot for shot recreations of some of the illustrations. I gather people were really happy with it, which as you know when people have strong feelings about a book is really hard to do. I also heard a lot of queer adults saying that they wish that they had had something like this when they were growing up, so it’s good that kids these days do especially given all the efforts to legally and otherwise try and stuff LGBTQ+ people back in the closet. I don’t think I connected with it as strongly as other people, which is fine. It was not made for me, but I’m really happy that it seems to mean a lot to the people it was meant for.

Ghosts (British Version)

The hit CBS sitcom Ghosts was actually adapted from a British sitcom that is available on HBOMax. They’re pretty fairly equivalent. I think I like the lead actress in this version better than the CBS one, but I also like the actor who plays the husband better in the British version so I guess it balances out. Same with some of the ghosts. There was a joke about not eating rice krispies until they’re dead (i.e. no longer making noise) that I still cannot stop laughing at, and that I mention every time my husband eats rice krispies. Solid bit that.

We Own This City

We Own This City is a show created by David Simon based on a true story and book written by former Baltimore Sun and now Baltimore Banner reporter, Justin Fenton. A lot of critics and people of course compared this to The Wire, which it’s not and isn’t meant to be because it’s not The Wire. They seemed to be mad about that. I thought the show was fine, but I wasn’t upset that it wasn’t The Wire. As someone who read the book and lived through all the news coverage while it was happening the show didn’t have much to offer me other than the way it portrayed the story that I already knew really well. The show was way too convoluted presenting the story jumping around in time with sometimes only very subtle clues as to what year you were in. I could sometimes barely figure it out and I have to think that anyone coming to this story cold would have to be confused a lot.

Under the Banner of Heaven

Speaking of shows based on books, Under the Banner of Heaven is an adaptation of the book by John Krakauer about a murder and a crazy Mormon sect. Again the show was fine, but it in no way did the book justice. I remember loving this book when I read it and finding it super compelling. I didn’t want to put it down. I did not feel anything like that for this show. I could very easily have stopped watching it at any time and not felt like I was missing anything.

First Kill

First Kill is a new teen vampire show where the vampire and vampire hunter fall in love. It’s of course reminiscent of things like Buffy and Vampire Diaries, but it’s also very heavily based on Romeo and Juliet with the families of the two girls warring and telling them they need to stay away from each other. It was in no way actually good. It does have Elizabeth Mitchell in it though, so that’s a bonus. However most of the acting is pretty terrible or the writing is or maybe both.I still binge watche the stupid thing in two days.

Last Week Delight

This week’s delights feel pretty random, but I guess that’s the whole point of doing this is noticing even the weird, tiny things that bring you a moment of joy

  • My umbrella dress. I have a dress from eShakti that has umbrellas on it. It’s one of my most complimented dresses. What I love about it aside from the pockets of course is that it’s flowy in such a way that when I’m walking down my stairs it catches just enough of a breeze that it billows out in a delightful way. It makes me happy every time it happens.
  • Bubbles. Last weekend my friend and I were sitting outside in a park and a little girl and her mom were blowing bubbles and they kept blowing into us. They kept apologizing and eventually moved to the other side of us, but we didn’t mind. Then I was driving home from work a few days later and random bubble just floated in front of my car, obviously from someone playing with bubbles in a yard on the street. Bubbles are just inherently joy making. Who doesn’t love bubbles?
  • Puppy in a window. I live in a neighborhood of rowhouses, which means that a lot of people’s windows are right up on the sidewalk and their houses are easy to see into if they don’t have them covered in some way. There is a house that I walk by every morning that must not have central air because their front window is always open in the summer. Last summer they had a little kitten that used to hang out in the window and always seemed like it was trying to play with me through the screen when I walked by. This summer they have a new puppy and now he hangs out in the window and seems like he wants to play. The other day he was standing with his paws up on the window sill looking out the window with a toy in his mouth and he dropped it on the window sill as I was walking by like he wanted me to pick it up and play with him.
  • Filled pothole. There has been a pothole in one of the alleys I use to get to the parking pad behind my house. It was really quite the crater, and it was super annoying to drive through. I literally thought it was never going to get filled partly because it wasn’t clear who was responsible for it. Was it the city or the property owner of the building in front of it? There’s some weird stuff about who owns what for the alleys and sidewalks on your property, so I had no idea and figured that if it was the business who was responsible they would never realize and would do nothing about it. I have no idea who finally filled it, but I’m just glad it’s finally fixed. I was very excited the night I came home and realized that I didn’t have to drive through a giant hole to get home.
  • And speaking of driving, I got another delivery order of Taharka Brothers ice cream to split with my friend this week. We had to. It was for the children. Our local elementary/middle school was doing a fundraiser with them, so you see it would have been very wrong of us not to get it. Anyway, I was driving to her house to drop off her half of the ice cream and was thinking it was going to be terrible because of this one intersection I have to turn left at. There used to be a cut through to get to her house around this old brick water tower, but they closed it off to repair it and have never reopened it so now I have to make a left turn through this terrible intersection to get there. It was rush hour, so I figured it was really going to be bad, but then amazingly there were literally no cars going south on the road so I was able to easily turn left across it no problem! Miracle!
  • Salmon from Cypriana. My husband and I went out to dinner at Cypriana last week because the weather was nice and I figured we should take advantage of eating outside now because soon the weather will be hot and gross and we won’t want to anymore. There are lots of things on their menu that look good, but I will apparently never know how they taste because I have only ever ordered their salmon. It is the best salmon I have ever had and have never been able to make myself order anything else because I love it so much. It’s flavorful and perfectly cooked with a crispy outside and a moist, tender inside. Yum!
  • I have to get blood drawn every few months because of the medications I take. I have terrible veins. It’s lucky that I do not have an aversion to needles or blood because finding a usable vein to draw blood is always a drama. Usually it involves getting stuck multiple times in both arms, some digging around in there with the needle, and sometimes resorting to weird places like my wrist or the top of my hand. I even had someone do my foot once. It’s always a pleasant surprise when someone gets me in one stick. I had blood drawn last week and the phlebotomist not only got me in one stick, she did it with a regular needle instead of a butterfly needle. I told her I was impressed.
  • Cherry season. Cherries are my favorite fruit. Actual cherrries. Not fake cherry flavored things. That is actually one of my least favorite flavors. Tastes like medicine. Anyway I was excited when I went to the farmers’ market on Saturday and they had cherries. I love cherry season.
  • And now for your musical delight. We’re going way back to the 80s with the Survivor song “The Search is Over”. I loved this song when I was a kid. I was thinking about this, and how my friends and I were really into very earnest love ballads and deciding it was because those were the over top emotional songs we had to process our over the top pre-teen and teenage emotions. Kids after us had things like emo and pop punk. That’s what we had to work with. Anyway, I heard this song on the radio on my way to work last week, and I had honestly forgotten it even existed. Hearing it brought back a bunch of memories. Then apparently the song was stalking me because I believe I mentioned in one of these previous posts how my neighbors sit outside listening to music and wouldn’t you know it they were listening to this song this week. Crazy.

New Music Friday: Hear My Dear by the Tedeschi Trucks Band

I halfway adore the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Like the stuff I love I really love, but I don’t love everything. At their heart they are a jam band, and that is just not my thing. I don’t need a live performance of a song to be 20 minutes long. I also just don’t love every song as they can vary stylistically. However, I am 100% all in on Susan Tedeschi’s voice and their kind of twangy guitar rock. When she sings the song and it’s that sound on the album version, not three times as long version you’d get line I could not love it more. Last Friday they put out part 1 of what is going to be a 4 part film and album series based on some Persian tale of star crossed lovers. The album series is called I am the Moon and the first part is Crescent.

I don’t know about all of that. I haven’t even listened to the lyrics of the whole thing closely enough to understand the story it’s telling. I just know that I really like the song “Hear My Dear” because it encompasses all of the things that I said above that I love. My feelings about the album overall pretty much mirror my feelings about the bands entire corpus. Love the Susan fronted stuff. Don’t love the stuff she’s not the lead vocalist on. The 12 minute song is way too long. It kind of just wraps everything up in one 5 song package. So I guess I’ll just keep loving the songs I love and leaving the songs I don’t and reminding myself that no matter how strongly I feel about the songs I do love, I really don’t want to see them live again because too much jam.